Wake turbulence is a hazard, especially for small aircraft like his. It sounds like he zoned in on that and landed on taxiway Charlie. He was following an Airbus that he had in sight.
I had military pilots in my squadron who visually lined up at the wrong airfield (Lakenheath instead of Mildenhall, they are very close to one another).
I have seen guys almost land gear up, guys who forgot the flaps, guys who landed at approach minimums and then were so tense they almost forgot to apply the brakes and came close to going off the end of the runway.
Aviation is serious business. You are thinking and acting in 3 dimensions, handling weather, and a bunch of other factors.
Ford is by all accounts a very conscientious pilot. He takes is very seriously.
He made a mistake. Should he lose his license for it? I don't think so. I think the FAA should recommend retraining and that should close it.
There is someone here whose husband is a pilot who has flown into that place. Said it can be confusing.
Maybe, but the heavies coming into SNA don't land on 20L, which was the runway he was cleared for, so he couldn't have been following the Airbus. The Airbus would have been landing on 20R.
That he landed on Charlie instead of 20L, which is pretty clearly marked, says he was distracted by something. Plus, this isn't the first time he's flown into SNA.
Ford is by all accounts a very conscientious pilot. He takes is very seriously.
He did sound very contrite/embarrassed in his radio communications with the tower when he found out he landed on Charlie. I could tell by the recorded call to the tower that he was hoping the conversation would have ended it right there and sounded pretty disappointed that the tower was reporting the incident to the local FSDO.
My personal preference is to avoid big busy airports. We fly our planes for fun and do not need the aggravation. When my wife and I fly into the Los Angeles area we like to land at Santa Paula which is basically the last uncontrolled airport as you are approaching from the North. We also don’t mind flying into Camarillo which is has a tower but is not very busy.
As far as what happened to Ford... this is much ado about nothing. He didn’t hit anything: he wasn’t close to hitting anything; no one got hurt or killed; nothing got damaged... who in the heck cares? I have had closer calls out in the middle of nowhere.
I watched a passenger 747 do this one morning. Lined up on a runway at the old Floyd Bennet Field instead of JFK. Rather sharp port, then starboard turns got him back on the approach path.